


smile (like death doesn't drip from your lips)

by daredvvil



Series: bleeding truths [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, BAMF Tony Stark, Blood, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Gen, Hurt Tony, Kidnapping, Maria Stark's Good Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 06:12:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14443089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredvvil/pseuds/daredvvil
Summary: "It was the iron in Tony's spine and that patient smile, the one that whistled a dead man’s song like it owned his memories. A smile that promised retribution in its soft lilt, its beautiful fullness."Tony always had his mother's smile, abewaresign stamped behind his teeth.





	smile (like death doesn't drip from your lips)

Rhodey found Tony ( _just as he always found Tony, broken edges too sharp and pressed too tight against a stranger’s throat_ ) with a smile on his his face as he spoke to a man twice his size and half his intellect.

As he got closer it began to look less like a smile than a scythe, wicked sharp and seeking blood, seeking to draw whatever pain it could (  _from the cretin, Tony would hiss later, refusing to explain why he had swung, only insisting that it had to be done_ ). His countenance echoed the grin, stance relaxed, palms opened and gesturing casually as he spoke, but something in his posture screaming _danger_ too harshly for Rhodey to ignore.

( _It was the iron in his spine and that patient smile, that whistled a dead man’s song like it owned his memories. A smile that promised retribution in its soft lilt, its beautiful fullness._ )

Rhodey caught Tony’s wrist in a downward swipe, hauntingly close to the slice of a descending blade, stalling his words with the touch.

“Hey, Tones,” he smiled carefully at the boy, too young still to be wearing that predatory grin on his lips like armor, “let's get lunch, yeah?”

Tony's smile was gone, a curious look on his face as he stared at Rhodey, blinking slowly. “Sure,” Tony shrugged, abandoning whatever he'd been saying to the other man, smile returning to his face ( _softer, less shark-teeth and blood, but no less dangerous_ ).

He stepped towards Rhodey, then something flashed in his eyes and Rhodey had a split second for an idle, _oh shit_ , to race through his consciousness before Tony was turning, fluid from the tips of his toes to the knuckles of his right hand.

He planted his foot and threw his fist forward ( _throwing his whole body behind the punch like a whispered promise, dripping with blood and desperation_ ), catching the man in the gut before Rhodey could react, smile still marring his face, wide and cold and deadly.

( _Later, bloody knuckles curled in Rhodey’s hands, Tony would smile at him, easy and familiar and sweet._ )

  
**◇◇◇**  


His mouth was full of blood, thick and warm and oozing from his lips like poison. It painted his face, dripping past his chin and neck, into the collar of his shirt, dancing sluggishly from the open wound on his forehead _( gained of sharp words and a sharper bite )_.

Another fist pulled back, prepared to slam into him, and Tony smiled in spite of it, letting out a reedy gasp when he was hit.

The owner of the hand cocked their head, squinting down at Tony like he could almost see the threat in his grin _( so bent at the edges, warped and wrong and molded into something more than a smile since he was too young to walk )._  They'd ask him to build soon, to create and breath life into inanimate scraps of metal, and Tony would.

He'd work and work, smiling at his captors with dead eyes and an empty soul. He'd wear his own blood on his face like a promise, hands steady as his ribs ached desperately, biding his time and his anger, ever patient.

( _He’d leave that warehouse in ashes, a husk of a building, death trailing in his wake and gunpowder on his smile._ )

  
**◇◇◇**  


The bunker was cold, terribly so, chokingly so, and Tony could feel every bit of it in the icy anger in his veins. Barnes and Rogers ( _Steve, his mind lamented traitorously, a door in him slamming shut to quell the flood of ‘why’s and desperation_ ) fought him like they wanted blood, like they wanted to tear at him until he was just a stain on the bunker wall.

He fought back, just enough to hurt them ( _just enough to make them feel some superficial version of what he was feeling, to make them bleed_ ). Barnes’ arm was torn off by the unibeam, ripped away, smoking hot and steaming on the chilled air. Steve attacked with more fire and more passion and more fury, and Tony only felt colder, the chill creeping over him until Steve had him on his back, and the faceplate was being ripped away, and Tony felt like he'd die with ice in his lungs and sludge in his veins.

His lips split when he smiled, dry from the cold. And it was sharp, sharper than any words he had ever thrown at Steve, forged to hurt him, to _betray_ him.

( _“Smile, tesoro,” Maria Stark would sing when Howard was gone, holding Tony’s little hand in hers, “smile like a promise, smile like an armor.” And Tony would laugh and laugh, clumsy hands pulling at her pearls._ )

Steve was still punching him, and he was still smiling, and a manic laugh escaped his throat, all jagged edges and bloodied glass as he didn't move to fight back.

( _“Yes, Mama,” he’d say, and he would smile like she taught him, smile with his intention right behind his lips. Then he'd pitch forward and kiss her cheek like she did to him before bedtime._ )

Steve raised the shield, flashing _red, white, blue_ in the bunker's dim light, and Tony raised his arms, protecting his face, keeping the smile etched there like a dagger dipped in blood. He was clutching the shield tight enough to make his knuckles go white, and then it was swinging down, down, down and straight for Tony.

He welcomed it with open arms and a smile on his lips, raw and broken and terrible.

( _She'd pick him up and spin him, and she'd smile happy and warm, and they'd stay in and play hide and seek, Maria crooning old love songs and Tony giggling. “Luce dei miei occhi!” she’d call before she found him, and when she smiled they'd both ignore the wish it held to run away._ )

Vibranium cracked against the arc reactor, shattering the glass and drawing a choked gasp from Tony, shuddering out from deep within his chest. His smile shattered with it, twisting and distorting into a sneer of disgust, of pain, anger, and everything festering ice cold in his chest, just below where the metal pressed into it painfully. Steve heaved for breath above him ( _and Tony wished to lunge forward and do something, anything. Wished to rewind and use every ounce of force he had in the suit against him, because Steve had stabbed him through the heart without hesitating._ )

Later, alone with a broken suit and a shield that made him choke on ragged breaths, Tony smiled again.

  
( _And it was a smile that promised retribution in blood._ )

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you thought of this! i'm still unsure about its quality but it was fun to write!
> 
> ([hmu on tumblr](https://starkdocx.tumblr.com))


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